


Finding Balance

by kouredios



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Canon Disabled Character, Disabled Character of Color, Gen, Parenthood, inbetween canons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kouredios/pseuds/kouredios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toph Beifong had never intended to be a mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Balance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosabelle](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=rosabelle).



> Mild warning for the offscreen death of an OC.
> 
> Many thanks to Sanj for beta.

Toph Beifong had never intended to be a mother. She made a much better auntie. When Katara and Suki started having babies, she could enjoy bringing them presents and holding their squirming bodies for a time, and then she could enjoy giving them back. It wasn’t that she disliked children; it’s just that she was self-aware enough to know that she had no good role model for stable parenting. She had no idea how to be a good parent, and no potential child deserved a mom who had no idea what she was doing.

 

Life in Republic City was good, if at times complicated. The Beifong Metalbending Academy was thriving, and Toph had developed into an accomplished administrator. She missed teaching, sometimes, but the truth was she wasn’t that good at it. She was much better at telling people what to do--people whose jobs it was to actually do what she told them. She rarely even needed to yell or threaten anyone! Unfortunately.

Falling in love with Shen was also never part of the plan. She wasn’t used to needing anyone, much less one of the top instructors at her academy. Having the power to give him the class of thirteen-year-olds when she was cross with him helped, a bit. She tried to ignore the fact that he didn’t mind. He was great with kids. She was great with files. She had developed a raised-stroke form of writing that made it possible for her to read, with the help of the Library and Aang. It was impressive, how much scholarly and linguistic training Aang had had, and how much that had never come up when they were running from the Fire Nation. At night, when she wasn't running the Metalbending Academy, she was transcribing scrolls at home while Shen read them aloud, curled up against her in bed.

Life was good. Life was under control. Toph Beifong liked her life.

All that changed when a group of thugs started harassing the Metalbending Academy. This was different from the encounters with Kunyo and his firebenders; these bullies were organized. They had systematically been extorting all the new businesses in the Academy District of Republic City—threatening the business-owners with arson if they didn't pay the “insurance” fees. Toph refused, of course. In fact, she had laughed in their faces. “The Boulder couldn't intimidate me; the Dai Li couldn't intimidate me; Fire Lord Ozai couldn't intimidate me. What in the world makes you think you can?”

 

The first time they tried to set fire to the Academy, Toph and Shen threw up shields of earth around the whole building. The second time, they had hired a young waterbending student to guard the door, and the girl had handily put out the fire. After that, however, the thugs got devious. They started conflagrations at night, or early morning. Toph had not left the school unprotected, but the thugs had increased their numbers and their points of attack. One night, Shen was on barracks duty supervising and guarding the young dormitory students when a fire broke out in the kitchen. He raced toward the blaze, calling out to the waterbending support guard, but arrived alone in a prison of flame. When Aang came to Toph's home to give her the news, his voice shook, his body folded inward.

 

As Aang gently gave her the news, Toph felt her chest cave in. She put her hands there to make sure she was still whole. It didn't feel like it. Shen was dead, and she was still alive. That didn't seem fair. Her feet were still firmly on the ground, and she could sense Aang's concern—his body bent slightly toward hers, as if he thought she would collapse with the weight of this news. As if Toph Beifong could ever collapse. She was as strong as stone; as strong as steel. She bent her thoughts away from grief and toward solutions. She could grieve later, in the dark where no one could see.

 

That night, Toph cried silently in her bed, tucked up in a curled position inside a pyramid of stone, just as she did as a child when she wanted to be left alone. The problem was, this time she didn't _want_ to be left alone. She just had no choice in the matter.

 

The next few weeks, she lost herself in a flurry of activity, proposing the Republic City Police Department as a replacement for her Metalbending Academy as well as for the solution to the new city's emerging crime problem. She would train her students, not just in the strategies of bending earth and metal, but in strategies of peacekeeping and justice. She felt her resolve harden as she gave presentations before the young Council—mostly made up of her friends, it's true—and the students she had left. Not all of them joined her. Not all of them were interested in following her into the realm of law and order. That was fine. Toph didn't need them. She needed justice.

 

For those weeks, apart from the official business, she had thoroughly isolated herself from her friends. She couldn't bear their pity or their grief. All their feelings would bring out her own grief, washing over her and pulling her under, and she couldn't let that happen. There was work to be done.

 

So when Katara knocked on her door one morning after the Council had accepted Toph's proposal, Toph answered it with some hesitancy. She didn't want to talk about Shen, and she wasn't feeling very well, besides. She had chalked it up to the changes in her daily routine, but hadn't yet been able to shake off the upset stomach and full, bloated feeling.

 

As Toph opened the door, Katara swept in as if nothing had changed, heading immediately to the tea set and preparing the water before Toph even had a chance to sit down. “We need to talk, Toph. _You_ need to talk.”

 

“Do not,” Toph pouted. “I'm fine.”

 

Katara gave an exasperated sigh. “You are **not** fine, and you're acting like a child. Do you know how I know? Because this is exactly how you acted when you first joined me, Sokka, and Aang—announcing that you can carry your own weight, and that you didn't need any help from any of us. Apparently you haven't learned anything since you were twelve. You won't talk to any of us about anything other than official Council business, and you're working yourself too hard.

 

Toph was still pouting. “I learned how to metalbend since I was twelve.”

 

Katara snorted. “Point taken. I'm serious though, Toph. We're all worried about you. The police force is a great idea, and Aang is grateful for the help, but he's also very concerned that you're emotionally all out of balance. You're not going to be able to get this metalbending police force off the ground if you're not well-centered first.”

 

Toph stopped to consider this insight. Perhaps her imbalance could explain the stomach upset and the bloating. “It's possible. I've never felt this imbalanced before. What does it feel like? Because, I must admit, if it feels like my favorite foods are all going to make me vomit, and like I've gained ten pounds of water in my feet, you may be right.”

 

Katara paused longer than Toph would have expected before speaking, which indicated she was making faces Toph couldn't see. “What's that face about? No, I can't see you, but you must be making a face at me. Spit it out. What's wrong with me?”

 

“Toph...were you and Shen...careful?”

 

Toph frowned. “Obviously not. Wait, what?”

 

Katara sighed again at Toph's obtuseness, and not for the last time, she was sure. “Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

***

Toph Beifong had never intended to be a mother. She had no good rolemodel; she didn't know how. But that wasn't actually true anymore, was it? Katara was born to be a mother, and Toph could follow Katara in this. She also couldn't help but realize, all in a moment, that she needed this baby. Shen's baby, and her baby. And that she needed her friends, now more than ever. She knew she didn't have to go through with it; she didn't _have_ to be a mother if she didn't want to. But she suddenly found herself wanting to.

 

Toph gestated her child during the same time that she gestated the metalbending police. She made plans, and she created a home. She built a barracks and an office; she constructed a bassinet out of clay. In response to Suki's worried, “Are you sure?” Toph grinned. “Of course I'm sure. My child won't be complete without a thin layer of dirt. Anyway, how else am I supposed to be able to check on her?” “Her?” Sokka inquired. “You're sure about that, are you?”

 

“Yes,” was Toph's solid answer. “I'm sure.”

 

She was right, of course, as she usually was. The day her daughter arrived swept by in a blur of contractions and breathing, internal struggles and externalized yelling. Katara served as midwife, and permitted Toph to give birth on the packed ground of her own home, so she didn't have to miss a second of it. Toph felt her strength and balance flow into and out of the earth as she rode the contractions out and birthed her daughter in a wash of dirt and blood. She wept then, bittersweet tears of joy for herself and for Lin and sadness for what had been taken from her. When Katara placed the wailing infant in her arms, Toph felt peace for the first time since the fire.

 

It didn't last. Not unbroken, anyway. Parenting was more work than Toph had ever thought imaginable. She'd wonder how her parents did it, except that she already knew: servants, teachers, guards. She had her friends, of course, but she didn't want to ask for too much, and she didn't want to live with anyone else full-time. For the first couple of years as Toph was establishing the police force, she left baby Lin with Katara during the day. When Katara and Aang needed to leave Kya, Bumi, and Tenzin with someone, Toph volunteered. She and Lin did have the best sandbox in all Republic City, after all.

 

Meanwhile, Toph and her metalbending police were hard at work cleaning up the streets. She never did find the specific thugs that had set the fire that killed Shen; she didn't know their names nor what they looked like. But she stopped a lot of thugs, and somehow she started to feel better.

 

Slowly, and quickly, and all-at-once, Lin Beifong was growing into a serious and talented little girl. Toph was struck with wonder almost every day, at how she could be responsible for this small human who was both so familiar and so alien. Lin was orderly and quiet—so unlike her mother. As soon as she was tall enough to reach the cupboards, Lin took it upon herself to do the cleaning up. Toph didn't know how to establish a bedtime routine or set limits on Lin's playtime; all she knew was that she couldn't do as her parents had done and draw a gilded cage around her daughter—and she personally had never responded to limits, anyway. She found, however, to her astonishment, that Lin already knew her own limits. She slept through the night after one week, and by the age of three was taking her mother by the hand and tucking her into bed when she sensed Toph's exhaustion was overwhelming her.

 

Lin had reached age five before she thought to ask about her father. It's not that Toph was hiding anything from her—in fact, Toph was a great believer in being honest to children. (“Mama why are your eyes white?” “Are they? I can't see them, so I never knew that.”) But she never volunteered any information about Shen. She just couldn't think about how to even begin to tell Lin about the father she would never know.

 

“Mama, do I have a Daddy? Kya, Bumi, and Tenzin have a Mama _and_ a Daddy. Why don't I?”

 

Toph hugged her daughter tight—so tight that Lin started to squirm in discomfort. “You do have a Daddy, but I lost him before you were born. He was a wonderful man and an excellent teacher, and some bad men started a fire in our school, and he died trying to stop them.” There. That was both simple and truthful. That should work.

 

“Why didn't you ever tell me about him before? What was his name? What did he look like?” Toph, to her astonishment, heard tears in Lin's voice. Lin almost never cried.

 

Toph began petting Lin's hair, trying to soothe the tears away. “I...don't know, honey. For a long time, it hurt me to talk about him. I missed him so, so much. His name was Shen. I don't know what he looked like; I can't see faces, remember? But I can tell you that he was an earthbender, like we both are, and a metalbender, like I am and someday you will be. He was gentle, and kind, and a wonderful teacher. He died trying to save his students. You should be proud of him.”

 

Lin sniffled. “I don't know how to be proud of him. I don't know him. But I don't want you to hurt. Can I talk to Aunt Katara about him?”

 

A tear began to roll down Toph's face and dropped into Lin's hair. “Of course you can. I'm so sorry. I should have started telling you about him as soon as you could understand any stories that I told you. It just didn't occur to me. That was a mistake, and I'm sorry. Aunt Katara can tell you about him, and Aunt Suki. Also Uncle Aang and Uncle Sokka. They all knew him and loved him too.”

 

Lin dug her head into her mother's armpit and sighed. “I'm sorry I made you sad, Mama, I just didn't understand why I don't have a Daddy too. Bumi teased me about it today, and I didn't know what to say.”

 

Toph grimaced. “He did, did he? Well, I'll have a talk with Aunt Katara. And tomorrow, you can come to the station with me instead of spending the day with them, if you want. You can watch me drill the officers in their metalbending forms.”

 

Toph couldn't see her daughter's reaction, but she felt her perk up in her arms, and imagined a grin across her face, ear to ear.

 

“CAN I? That would be the best, Mama. I want to be one of your police officers when I grow up.”  
For the second time in one evening, Toph was startled by her daughter's pronouncements. “You do? Really? Well, now. I think that can be arranged.”

 

Some days later, Toph and Katara sat holding cups of tea and loosely supervising while the children played together outside. Toph let Katara know of Bumi's teasing, trusting her friend would take care of instruction on her side, while Toph processed the feelings that had erupted in Lin as a result of the incident. She sighed with contentment, feeling that she could actually do this. She could handle being a mother.

“That was a happy sound,” mused Katara. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m a bit surprised to find that I’m not a bad mother. I might not be as good as you are, but I’m not too shabby, either. It never occurred to me that this might be my life, and I’m finding that it suits me. Weird."

Toph couldn’t see her, but Katara was smiling. Not a sly smile that said, “I told you so,” but a pleased smile that spoke to her genuine joy at her friend’s happiness.

***

Toph Beifong had never intended to be a mother. When she became one anyway, she found that it suited her. It wasn’t her destiny and it wasn’t her downfall. It was just her life, and she managed to maintain her balance and create a stable foundation for both herself and her daughter in this new world that she had helped to create.


End file.
